Is there a way to backup large hard drives, easy n cheap?

[randym431]

I need to find a way to backup three 150gb drives. Two options would be to get other hard drives to backup onto, remove and save the drive. Another would be using some kind of tape, but a good large capicity tape drive is $1000+. Are there any other options? Any low cost tape or other media?

 

[een]

Get two 200Gb drives, use ghost to back up the drive and do a high compression on the image. You can probably shrink a full 150 gig drive to 50 gig depending on the type of files inside. Unless you have 150 gig of zip files you'll be fine.

All three drives will probably fit into one.
200 gig drive should only cost you 150? or 200 at most.

Cheers

 

[Vegito]

ghost is one way, you can get some cheap real time replication software, which just checks for file attribute for changes and copy that file over to your target HD.. so you can restore instantly... backing up with ghost takes some time, restore also.. but i would ghost the boot parition since thats where all your settings are

 

[uOpt]

Marry an unemployed girl and have her change CDs

Harddrives as backups have the disadvantage that you have one one or very few generations, and obviously no permanent one. If you have a damaged file due to memory corruption you might find out about it only after you overwrote all generations.

An alternative is a first full backup on a harddrive and then incremental backups on DVDs. That would work well for the backup if you have low change rates, but would be a nightmare to restore. Remember you can never overwrite the harddrive if you want to avoid problem 1). So if you backup every week you have at least 100 CDs after two years, and you need to red through the harddrive and all 100 DVDs to restore a single file.

 

[Zepper]

Yes, I recommend using a second HD in a mobile rack so you can remove it. Don't use imaging software for a secure backup - those are just for Q&D restore to a known condition. I have given the reasons in several recent threads on the same topic (which belongs in the Software section, BTW).
. Use a file-by-file backup program like My Backup or Dantz Retrospect along with Ghost or other imaging program if you want. Seagate 160GB drives are $50. AR at outpost .com right now. Got friends ???

.bh.

:moon:

 

[EULA]

I'd still recommend tape drives. With tape drives, my backups can be stored off-site, and I can revert to any day in the last 2 weeks. Sure, its expensive, but its well worth it if you have important information.